RIOT REQUESTS
So we now know a lot more about the city's planning for the Stanley Cup playoffs and some of the back-and-forth between officials before and after the riot.
We even know where the parade route would have been had the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Canucks managed to put more biscuits in the basket than the Boston Bruins.
That's because the city posted hundreds of pages of documents related to the playoffs and the riot on its website. It was done conveniently on a late Friday afternoon, which limited its news value.
I found out about the documents in an email from a city staffer, who sent the same dispatch to everyone who filed Freedom of Information requests for information related to the riot.
Instead of answering each request, this was the city's response. "As an FOI applicant for 2011 Stanley Cup records, you are hereby notified that all City of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»records related to this topic will be made public, with extremely limited severing, beginning Friday, September 9, 2011 at 3 p.m.," wrote Barbara Van Fraassen, the city's manager of corporate information and privacy. "Today's public record release is phase one of the Stanley Cup public record release. There will be further follow-up record releases as the FOI record reviews are completed. All phases of the public record release are expected to be completed prior to or on September 16, 2011, with the exception of [third party] records that must complete the third party notification process."
Which is very transparent of the city but, to quote full-time world saver and part-time Irish vocalist Paul David Hewson, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
How about the email exchanges between the mayor and the police chief? Email exchanges between city councillors? Email exchanges between the city and the Canucks owners?
As many other journos did, I also made FOI requests to the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Police Department for information related to police plans for the playoffs and its response to the riot.
The VPD is working on it, according to an email I received from Darrin Hurwitz, the department's administrative legal advisor. And, Hurwitz added, it may cost me. "As a result of your broad request and our search for responsive records, new avenues and sources of potentially responsive records may arise-we may consider it appropriate to levy a fee estimate in that regard," he wrote. "If you are in a position to potentially narrow the scope of your request, it would likely assist us with our search."
Not sure that I will narrow my search and hoping the VPD will simply follow the city's lead on releasing the information I requested.
Meanwhile, I continue to flip through riot reviews conducted by the VPD, the city and the B.C. government-ordered report that reveals a lot of what the public already knew-too many people, lots of drunks and an overwhelmed police force.
Eight months until playoffs. Go Canucks?
Twitter: @Howellings
